Of all the little villages and seaside towns in Ireland that we visited, in most ways Kinsale was my favorite, for a lot of reasons, the first of which is that our local guide, Barry Maloney (pictured above) was not full of bologna, or as the Irish would say, blarney…. quick word study…. here is where that word seems to have come from… But still you’ll hear some woolly tales… or is it woolly tails…. Kinsale is important for a... Read more

Whilst in County Kerry and in the general vicinity of Dingle, we paid a special visit to a pub which honors a genuine Antarctic explorer and hero (and celebrates him with a remarkable lager). Tom answer the following call—- Here’s some of the story as told in the papers back then… Here’s a simple summary courtesy of me wife— Thomas Crean (1877-1938) was a member of three expeditions to Antarctica on three different ships, the Discovery (1901-1904), the Terra Nova... Read more

Since time immemorial, people have been fascinated by and pondering the meaning of stone circles and standings, especially those that seem to have patterns or writing on them. Naturally, our thoughts gravitate to something like Stonehenge on Salisbury plain, but in fact there are far more such stones, and more impressive ones in some respects, in Ireland. On the south side of Dingle Bay, there are the Dunloe Ogham stones. If you look carefully you will see the man-made strirations... Read more

The Ring of Kerry is one of the most beautiful of all areas in Ireland, by all accounts. Gorgeous lakes, pastoral scenes, and a national park, Kilarney National Park. First, here is one of the smallest lakes in Ireland’s equivalent to the Lake District in England… There were jaunting carts aplenty traipsing through the park, so we went for a ride. The same family has been providing jaunting cart rides for over 220 years here in this area. Our driver... Read more

Kenmare is a cute little tourist trap with lots of shops, including sweet shops in county Kerry (from whence the name of the famous butter— Kerrygold). For those of you who don’t know what a macaron is or looks like, doubtless there are all types, but the French ones are the most famous, and the Irish, not to be outdone, produce just as sweet and colorful ones. The town is also famous for its lace making (which is how some... Read more

Crossing into County Cork, we arrived at Blarney Castle, certainly one of the more familiar tourist destinations in Ireland. The extant castle dates to the time of Dermot McCarthy, which is to say about 1446. One of the regular features of castles, and churches in Ireland is round towers. These were originally perhaps bell towers, but they were also where the monks went to hide and protect themselves from Vikings and other invaders, and simply became part of the regular... Read more

On our way from Dublin to Blarney (on which more later in another post), we stopped in Urlingford, at Hayes Pub. It is a beautiful traditional pub where they very kindly opened early and served us tea (or beer) and scones. Yummy. Here’s our friendly barkeep and owner…. By traditional I mean it has traditional furniture, mirrors, taps, etc. It’s quite fetching. Pubs are not just places to go and have a beer, they are in fact community gathering places... Read more

Depending on your age, when you think of the music of Ireland, you may well think of Van Morrison, or this guy…. Or you might think of some of the New Age music of Enya, or her family band Clannad. But of course long before them there was the traditional folk music and folk dancing in Ireland, still represented today by bands like the Chieftains. Thanks however to Riverdance and Lord of the Dance, traditional Irish music has revived and... Read more

Certainly one of my all time favorite groups was Crosby,Stills and Nash, a combination of players from three prior major rock and roll groups— the Byrds (David Crosby), the Buffalo Springfield (Stephen Stills), and the Hollies (Graham Nash) and sometimes Neil Young (also Buffalo Springfield). Nowadays, Nash and Crosby are feuding and each of these guys is doing solo tours. In the case of Crosby and Nash, they are touring to back recent excellent albums of new material— see Croz,... Read more

It is not a pleasant tale to tell of the history of Irish repression by the English going back to Cromwell. Cromwell is not loved in Ireland, considering how many Irish people he killed. And this is not ancient history for the Irish, because they didn’t get their independence really until the 1920s. The scars are still visible. And just to be clear, I’m not even talking about northern Ireland, I mean the Republic in the south. Nevertheless, and in... Read more